Some hands go to the manicure
To primp and polish and shine
Some hands go to the velvet lure
And some to the jewel shrine;
But these are the hands that hold the plow
The self same hands as of old and now;—
They are the hands that court’sy and perk
But these are the hands that do the work.

Some hands hap on a hazard-green
And some with a shuffled pack
Some hands thrum on a tambourine
And some hang limpsy and lack;
But these are the hands that dig and drain
The self same hands that gather the grain;—
They are the hands that pleasure and shirk
But these are the hands that do the work.

Some hands spurn the rubble and clods
To clutch at the golden stairs
Some hands reach for the rainbow gods
On the pampered thoroughfares;
But these are the hands that wield the helve
The self same kind in the chosen Twelve;—
They are the hands that surfeit and irk
But these are the hands that do the work.

—–

Liberty Hyde Bailey was one of the most prominent American botanists of the early 20th century and an agrarian writer whose work influenced Wendell Berry and other present day neo-agrarians.